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Christian McBride on the making of The Movement, Revisited
February 22, 2011
SHAUN BRADY
METRO
February 22, 2011
Christian McBride had never even written a single set of lyrics
when he was tasked to compose a suite for a gospel choir in 1998. So
rather than entrust himself with the words, he turned to four of the
most momentous speakers of the 20th century: Civil Rights icons Rosa
Parks, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Everything
that those people said in the ’60s had such weight and meaning to it,”
McBride says. “My job was just to bring a little music to it and enhance
it.”
“The Movement” was expanded last year with the addition of a
fifth movement inspired by Barack Obama. “The election of Obama is a
direct result of the Civil Rights movement,” McBride explains. “This is
what King and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X had in mind. For them it was a
dream; for us, it’s the reality.”
Saturday’s performance of “The
Movement, Revisited” at the Annenberg Center, in celebration of Black
History Month, will mark the suite’s premiere in McBride’s native
Philadelphia. For the occasion, McBride — who parlayed his education at
CAPA and the Clef Club into a career as one of the most in-demand
bassists in modern jazz — will be joined by UPenn’s New Spirit of Penn
Gospel Choir and the Penn Jazz Ensemble, along with several alumni
serving as narrators.
